Dead Island Review

When that first teaser trailer for Dead Island first showed up so many months ago, it swept over the Internet. In just about a minute and a half, the trailer managed to tell a compelling, heartbreaking story about fear, loss and zombification.

Dead Island the game is nothing like that trailer, and I think that was my biggest trouble with it. Not that I expected Dead Island to deliver an emotional and compelling narrative — but I did expect some thought to be put into the narrative of the game at all. Instead, Dead Island is a collection of demanding and uninteresting NPCs that send you off to run their errands, with many zombies making the accomplishing of those always run-of-the-mill tasks rather difficult. The lack of any real incentive to complete all those errands, other than to get more errands to complete, ended up making the game somewhat boring.

Mostly it’s boring because you’re going to do roughly three things in Dead Island, and you’re going to do them often. The first is kill zombies. Depending on which of four nearly personality-free protagonist characters you choose, you’ll have a different specialization for fighting — blunt weapons, edged weapons, throwing and firearms. All the characters are capable of using everything they come across as a weapon, but some are better at certain things than others. Regardless, primarily you’re going to be searching your immediate surroundings for something like a knife or a canoe paddle, and you’re going to be burying that thing into a zombie skull.

In between long bouts of zombie-bashing, you’ll generally be either fetching things or escorting NPCs places. As the story (term applied loosely) goes in Dead Island, you and your three possible co-op compatriots are immune to whatever the zombie virus is, and as such you are the perfect candidates for the “going out and doing” part of surviving a zombie apocalypse. While everyone else stays back at the fenced-in enclosure in relative safety, you’re the one leaving to find gas for the generator, food for the bellies, protection for the mostly useless randos you encounter, and answers for the plot.

At the start of the game, a disembodied voice guides you to escape the hotel and before long, you find yourself with survivors. They immediately start assigning you jobs, and you’ll complete campaign quests and side quests ad nauseum. This is where Dead Island breaks down — while you might be able to compare it to Dead Rising, Borderlands or even to Fallout 3, it falls well short of all because it almost totally lacks characters. The “plot” of the story, largely, is “We’re outta food! Please help!” or “The water’s not working! Go fix it and I’ll allow you to advance to the next area where you’ll complete three more tasks before moving on!” or “How are we gonna get off this island? Go get a thing that might help! Oh no, it didn’t help! Go get another thing that might help!” At no point does it feel like accomplishing any of these tasks actually gets you anywhere; you’re merely helping each new group of people you encounter with whatever they need you to do, so you can move on to the next group and the next set of tasks. Your reward is experience points and usually some material possession, be it a sweet new weapon or some cash, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re endlessly engaged in busywork in a world that could care less whether you do it or not.

But it can be a fun world to screw around in. Dead Island finds a stride in its RPG elements, with tons of loot scattered throughout the game and lots of new weapons to find or build. There’s a fairly huge number of weapons, and they wear out and become less effective as you use them, making Dead Island a constant inventory management game that requires lots of strategy. Players need to keep track of which weapons are on the way out, which are most effective, and which need to be sacrificed by throwing them away. You’ll also find a ton of weapons mods that can be initiated at work benches, where weapons can be repaired and upgraded. Benches are more important than just about anything in the game, and you’ll always be spending the ludicrous amount of cash you find throughout the game at benches to keep your weapons in good repair.

Every time you gain enough experience points to level up, you’ll be able to unlock an ability in one of three tech trees. One is dedicated to “Rage,” each character’s ability to go into a super-powered berserk mode that lasts until he or she stops killing for too long. Another is for generalized combat, upgrading your strength and increasing your stamina; the last is generalized survival, with perks that go toward exploration and finding and using items. There are a ton of upgrades and you’ll need to spend a lot of points to unlock the lower portions of the tech tree, so there’s a good deal of customization involved. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of throwaway abilities that aren’t that useful but are in the way of better ones further along on the progression scale.

In combat, Dead Island isn’t bad, it’s just repetitive. The sheer number of weapons available and the different ways they work, coupled with a dismemberment system that dishes out different effects depending on where you hit enemies, means combat is (mostly) strategic. There are also a number of tougher zombies that require different strategies to defeat. Mostly, you’ll find yourself assessing situations and looking for the best options: stand your ground or flee, go for high ground or chance it on the street. After a while, running is as good an option as fighting, if not better.

That’s partially for saving time — you’ll spend a lot of time in Dead Island if you do everything, possibly 30 hours or more — but also because zombies are f–king hard to kill, both as a function of the way the game is made and because of the wonky way that it plays. First-person melee combat can be tough to gauge at any point, with the ranges of weapons being tough to guess, and that’s to say nothing of the sometimes choppy zombie animation that can sometimes work against you. Zombies also scale right along with you during the course of the game, so you’re always fighting top-level enemies. This requires you to continually search for newer, better weapons to stay competitive. It also means you’ll repeatedly get your ass kicked by run-of-the-mill zombies who get the drop on you or gang up on you.

The combat stays fresh and quite harrowing throughout, and when you’re adventuring around the island, you’ll be constantly checking corners and listening intently for clues as to where enemies will be coming from, how many they’ll be and what type they are. In this sense, Dead Island is really rather spooky and immersive. Fighting zombies is always a fight for your life, and most of the game you’ll have no choice but to get close to the monsters to dispatch them. That engenders some pretty powerful adrenaline bursts throughout.

It’s too damn bad the reasons you’re out bashing zombies in the first place are less compelling and sometimes downright annoying.

It’s just that for a game like Dead Island to work, players need an incentive to spend all that time, escort all those characters and smash all those skulls. Usually, the carrot in front of the cart is a storyline, but the way Dead Island delivers its plot made me feel like I went to the bathroom during a key scene in a movie. Wait, there’s a “rumored” lab somewhere on the island? Wait, I found Semtex at the helicopter crash I investigated? Wait, what happened to that group of survivors, the well-being of whom was my sole concern for the entire first half of this game?

Without a compelling plot, Dead Island becomes too big, and certainly just not interesting enough to warrant yet another search for bottles of water for NPC X or the fetching of gasoline for NPC Y. Nothing ever happens, despite the Herculean effort the player ends up putting into the game by the end. The exploration of the huge world or the destruction of zombies might be an end unto itself with some friends in co-op, but alone it’s extremely tiresome.

My playthrough for Dead Island’s review was on the PC version, and it was a buggy, strange affair. I’m not sure if it was my review build or if the retail version will be the same way, but I’m forced to warn players away from it. Visual bugs infected the entire experience: my copy would never render fire or steam escaping from vents, or even the gross Boomer-like spit of certain zombie types. I had to use my imagination and lighting clues to guess where fire was so I could avoid getting burned, and despite my character yelling “Damn!” whenever I blew something up, I never got to see an explosion. Cutscenes, too, occasionally suffered some really weird visual issues. Audio also would sometimes cut in and out, and I caught more than one NPC switching voice actors from encounter to encounter. However, I played a fairly complete preview build of the first hour on Xbox 360 with no similar problems — so I can’t be sure if it’s just me, or if the PC version really does have so many problems.

Dead Island does get a lot of things right, almost in spite of itself. It’s a huge undertaking and you’ll certainly get a lot of content for your money. The question is whether you’ll want all that content, and I highly doubt that you will. Sure, it feels like there are 100 quests in Dead Island and if you play them all, you’ll get 30 hours out of the game — but they’re all the same two or three quests, mostly offered by different faces. By the end, I found myself saying, “I have to go fetch you something again?” and no number of action-packed zombie close calls could make it exciting.

(Note: As of this writing and due to time constraints, I was unable to try Dead Island in its cooperative mode, which is a major selling point for the game. This review will be updated once Game Front staffers have had a chance to experience Dead Island’s co-op.)

Pros:

Truly incredibly huge world. Just when you think it’s really big, you enter a new area — which is the same size as the first. And then you do it again. And again.

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56 Comments on Dead Island Review

JosephPS3

On September 5, 2011 at 3:57 am

THis game is more like 7 hours long but repeated 3-4 times. Once you play it for 7 hours you can turn it off because its more of the same.

The missions and story could be in Kha’ak language for all I care cause it doesn’t matter. Its just another objective or reason to go and explore and kill zombies.

I’ll get this game 6-12 months from now when you can find it used for $15 and even new for $20. There are too many great games coming out Oct and
Nov that cost the same and will be much much better.

I think $60 would be better spent on picking up Castlevania: Lord of Shadows ($20), Fallout: New Vegas ($20), and some other game I didn’t get on release.

Bottom line. Don’t like wasting money and time on lackluster games when I barely have time to play top notch of the year contender games.

DERKA

On September 5, 2011 at 7:13 am

“Scaling enemies”

Enough said, won’t be buying this game.

Steve

On September 5, 2011 at 7:53 am

Whats wrong with scaling enemies? I like that the enemies scale to your level because there will always be challenging enemies to fight no matter where your at. Anyways, I think this game looks awesome and I can’t wait to play it.

Baresark

On September 5, 2011 at 8:43 am

I am anxious to play this game. Thinking the story of a zombie game is going to drive you forward is a serious error. My expectations are not that big for the game so I know the $34 I spent on the PC version will be well spent. I know that the preview builds released for people such as yourself to play were unfinished. For instance, the 360 version suffered from some pretty serious popins and the resurrection system will spawn you inside a group of enemies. It’s not inconceivable that the PC version will have a day 1 patch addressing some of these things, just like is promised for the 360 version.

Phil Hornshaw

On September 5, 2011 at 9:58 am

@Baresark

It’s not so much that I expected a story — I didn’t, really I didn’t. It’s a zombie game, after all. The trouble is that the activity doesn’t drive you forward because you’re seriously repeating the same mission over and over again but for different characters. When character building gets old and modding weapons gets old, since you’re only ever at an advantage against the zombies for a little while until they level up again — what do you have left? With an even slightly compelling narrative I could have forgiven the repetition, but I struggled to find a reason to push on.

JosephPS3

On September 5, 2011 at 10:39 am

Scaling enemies: Cheap developer trick.

Doesn’t it take a lot thinking and effort to create a new class of harder enemies that require you to level up to stand a chance of winning? eg) Super Mutants in Fallout3.

A developer can easily make just one zombie and just keep scaling so you’re always challenged but that in my opinion is very cheap.

I get a blast out of coming back to a earlier level and feeling like superman when before I had to struggle and barely got out alive.

This game sounds like fun but its not worth $60. No way. Not when for the same money you can get Batman, Darksouls, Skyrim, Battlefield3, or DEHR (if you haven’t got it yet). Any of those games is money and time better spent.

Drax

On September 5, 2011 at 12:13 pm

I have to say I’m surprised that people are complaining about scaling enemies in an RPG. I’m also surprised that someone would complain about them AND praise Fallout 3 in the same post. Sorry, but Fallout 3 used scaling enemies as well, as did Oblivion and I’m sure Skyrim will too. Fallout 3 was a game of fighting bandits the entire time with a few other enemy types tossed in later. The different enemy types were like classes. Bandits for small arms, super mutants for heavy weapons, robots for energy weapons.

I’m really hoping that the technological difficulties were just in a review copy here and not the final copy, but in besides those, most of the cons from this review are pretty much standards of RPGs. Gotta wonder why you’d review an RPG if you don’t like the genre.

Phil Hornshaw

On September 5, 2011 at 12:27 pm

@Drax

I do like RPGs — in fact, they’re my favorite. And I don’t mind scaling enemies. The trouble is that, while it’s great that the zombies stay threatening throughout the game, it also leads to quite a few frustrating moments where you start to think, “yeah, I’m a zombie-killing badass” and then you run across a situation you SHOULD be able to handle and find you’re not up to the task. And die. The result is that you continue to upgrade your character really to stay at the exact same level. Sure, you have a huge health bar by the end of the game — but enemies damage you exactly as much, relative to your total life, as they did at the outset of the game. The only difference is that it takes longer to restore your health bar. So what’s the point of leveling at all, if it makes almost no difference to the way the game plays? In fact, I often felt WEAKER toward the end of the game than at the beginning when it came to dealing with standard enemies.

Scaling enemies can work provided you also feel as though the progression of your character is helping you be better equipped to deal with those enemies even if they stay strong. You want the fight to be tough but rewarding. Sometimes Dead Island is, sometimes it isn’t. It’s not a total failing, but there are moments when you’re left feeling just as weak and useless as ever.

As to Fallout, I was mentioning it for its mission structure and the narrative surrounding those missions, even the sidequests. Wasn’t drawing the comparison of scaling enemies — that’s a different discussion altogether.

Ryan

On September 5, 2011 at 12:28 pm

Other reviews have said that the enemy scaling fits the game well.

RGDubz

On September 5, 2011 at 1:03 pm

This review FAILS

Carlos

On September 5, 2011 at 2:23 pm

By the sounds of it the reviewer doesn’t enjoy killing zombies. I dont think I’ll trust his opinion when deciding if I’m going to buy or not.

Drax

On September 5, 2011 at 2:47 pm

@Phil Hornshaw

Well, I hope to see for myself how this game feels in about six hours. And actually, I like the feeling of helplessness even after killing thousands of zombies. It reminds you that no matter what, even if you’re the best zombie killer out there, if you let your guard down during a zombie invasion, you’re going to end up zombie snacks.

To me, the scaling sounds like it’s a great idea since it’ll mean that I won’t get bored scavenging near the beginning of the game or even abusing the game’s mechanics to scavenge where there’s no threat at all. They really focused on the whole survival thing on this game from what it looks like, and if I felt safe while a hoard of zombies was shambling towards me, then I really think the developers have failed at making a proper zombie game.

JosephPS3

On September 5, 2011 at 3:35 pm

Fallout3 and Oblivion had scaling enemies? I had no idea. I guess when its done right it works. Anyways scaling enemies or not in Dead Island the game just seems so uninteresting. I got excited after seeing the little girl trailer. I thought it was going to be a different type of game but its so generic and boring full of glitches. I love zombie games and this game does sound like it could be fun…for $20.

Phil Hornshaw

On September 5, 2011 at 3:36 pm

@Carlos

On the contrary — killing zombies is probably my very favorite thing. The trouble is that Dead Island has you doing it for about 30 hours, and after a while, it becomes a bit tiresome without more to push the game forward.

@Drax

I have to agree with you, which is why I mentioned that Techland has done a great job of making sure that from the first fight to the last, you’re always in danger of buying it at the hands of zombies. Perhaps my issue is less about the scaling of the enemies and more about the way your character progresses. You unlock some buffs through the tech trees, but despite how many you unlock (I think I got through 30 all told), you never feel especially better equipped for the apocalypse. So maybe it’s not that the zombies are too strong, but that throughout the course of the game, you remain too weak.

Still, the combat CAN be deeply satisfying, as can the running the hell away, which is sometimes your only viable option in DI. There were also some really great moments of combat and abject zombie terror. For example, in the game’s City locale, a zombie fight could turn problematic from sheer numbers and force you up on top of a vehicle, where you could get a momentary respite and swing away at the stupidly defenseless zombies below. Toward the end of the game, however, the quicker “Infected” brand of zombies (which I took to mean fresher, less-rotted zombies than the standard “Walkers”) started climbing things to chase me, and that turned the tables in a hurry.

The trouble is that there’s just so much zombie-killing, with little to break things up or keep your interest. A few gunfights with enemy humans are a welcome change, but even these are pretty run-of-the-mill pop-up-and-shoot affairs.

Mr Gerza

On September 5, 2011 at 5:54 pm

Great review. I can see where you are coming from on all fronts. Why progress if nothing progresses. Deus Ex does a great job of making you feel like something is coming from all your hard work. Phil sorry you have three or four readers that like to review before playing.

mike

On September 5, 2011 at 7:53 pm

Was Fallout 3 really scaling enemies? From what I remember, you could always find some easy targets to cream once you were leveled up pretty high.

Phil Hornshaw

On September 5, 2011 at 7:56 pm

@mike

From http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_FAQ

“A variation of level scaling is used to control the difficulty of the main quest, but enemies in areas that are not essential to the main quest will not be scaled to your level. Some places will be adjusted to your level when you first enter them, but they will not level up when you return – unlike Oblivion, you won’t find raiders in Power Armor.”

joopasaur

On September 6, 2011 at 8:47 am

I played dead island for about, 20 minutes…. crap. the depth between your weapon and the enemies is way off. the graphics are chopped so bad it gives me a headache. that stupid stamina bar appears each time you move, which in a first person combat game is a lot. what happened to good zombie games like resident evil 2 and 3? those games are amazing. these new gen games are crap. they feel the need to load it full of stupid, meaningless stuff. like resident evil 5 is thee worst game i have ever played, like how your partnered up is stupid. and how sheeva has to say, “thanks pahtnah!” like jesus christ. dead island is full of that generic, next gen garbage.

Justin

On September 6, 2011 at 9:08 am

I played for about 2 hours on the PC version and it had some bugs on high detail. This games pretty boring and i think the developers left a tool in the game code or something because when i press “y” or “t” im able to fly around wherever i want making it very tempting to skip the 6 zombies with an insane amount of health across the map to get something for some super repetitive task. Im disappointed to say the least.

Phil Hornshaw

On September 6, 2011 at 9:09 am

@Justin

YES, I forgot to mention — noclip mode is mapped to the Y key for some reason in the final release. Which is just strange, given that that’s usually a developer console feature.

SoldierZero-B

On September 6, 2011 at 9:31 am

@Phil They accidentally released the developer build for PC versions. I know about it on Steam, but I’m not sure if they released it for all PC versions.

Bonekrusher

On September 6, 2011 at 11:50 am

I already bought this turd, but it is going back unopened. This is the reason for the review embargo that was in place for this game, they knew it was crap when they released but wanted to sell it to the public anyway. I will not be pre-ordering any games from now on.

King

On September 6, 2011 at 7:15 pm

Who gives a rats ass about a story in a game, its about GAMEPLAY , if you want a story then read a book.

George

On September 7, 2011 at 10:07 pm

WoW! All I have to say is what a waste of time and money. I only paid $12 for a copy of this game (built up points and trade in’s) and I have buyers remorse. The only thing that hurts worse than my head after playing this game are my fingers from all the repetitive button pressing. I have over 6 hours of playing time in and it’s not getting any better. Very boring and I feel that I was lied to by viewing the teaser trailer. No way in hell would I buy this for $60. Modern Warfare 2 and 3… $60 games. Infamous 2… $60 game. Dead Island… Playstation Plus freebie. Way too many bugs in the PS3 version. Choppy graphics and dull plot. Dead Island… more like dead game with about as much excitement as watching paint dry.

sorrow

On September 9, 2011 at 12:17 am

what a bunch of dbags i mean come on cut it some fucing slack that and buy the 360 version its fun to play yes it gets old but so dose killling 7 year olds in moderncampfare2 and pwning every thing after the main quest line is done in fallout3 graphics are awsome maps are huge zombie killing is fun best wepon system with the amounts and crafting the fealing of being in a zombie apoc die easy same lvl zombies wich if you dont run past em all your mostly 3 lvls above them pc owner you get nocliping thats good nuf to keep you quiet you get to FLY! in a wolrd thats huge!!!!!!! you get cars in this game guns melee alot of zombie alot of quests 4 plays co op is fun bone breaking and limb dismemberment i mean come on be nice maby not worth 60 vucks to you and no one will prob read this but i just beat it it was fun long lasting amazing game to some one like me who’s job is not to look for con the past them to see the bloody golden skulls under the uguly smelly but faced zombie i liked give it a chance and see its a great game

sorrow

On September 9, 2011 at 12:19 am

bucks…

acck01

On September 9, 2011 at 9:12 am

By far the most fun ive ever had killing zombies… the story is dull sure, but so is every other zombie game. Look at Left for dead for christ sake. Both the first and second were the most boring renditions of zombie slaughter to ever grace a console. Yet both sold for $60. If you don’t want repetition in a video game then stop playing all together. Every RPG with a ton of side quests gets repetitive, plain and simple. At least in this game there are reasons for YOU going to get these peoples crap. Every other free roam RPG (Fallout series, Elder Scrolls Series, Deus Ex etc.) just has a bunch of lazy bastards who want you to do their legwork. The people in this game don’t leave the safe house because they’ll DIE period. You on the other hand are immune so there is a chance you won’t die. The side quests have you clearing an area for a new safe house, getting gas to power a generator so the person living there can stay alive a little longer, turning on speakers to provide a little bit of hope for any remaining survivors and so on. The story is only as lame as you make it. Anyone wanting a deep rich story like oblivion when it comes to a zombie survival game is an idiot. The story is survive and get off the island with as many survivors as possible… Simple to the point and the only possible story for this type of game. This isn’t a stupid TV show about people trapped on an island with 1000 different plot twists. Its kill zombies stay alive, find survivors, and get the hell off the island. There i spoiled it. Weapons and skills scale just fine with the scaling enemies. The enemies provide enough challenge to keep you on your toes at all times. If your weapon isn’t good enough then upgrade it, mod it, or get a new one simple. I used the same modified upgraded machetes from lvl 25-30 so no you don’t need a new weapon every level. I’m also going to go out on a limb and say the people complaining obviously didn’t play co-op. Trying to survive this game by yourself is damn near impossible at times, but with a couple friends all playing different characters this game can get VERY entertaining for LONG periods of time.

Berg

On September 9, 2011 at 10:50 am

I played the game for a couple of hours before I got bored. I heard it would be a kind of mix of Fallout and Borderlands (love both of those games) with zombies. It was but yet it was simply boring. The weapon modding system was cool, but it just wasn’t enough to keep me interested. Unless you REALLY like killing zombies I wouldn’t recommend this game.

Pizzedoff

On September 9, 2011 at 12:15 pm

This game completely blows… if you enjoyed Postal 2, buy this game. I swear it’s the same game from the same era. The graphics are not next gen, they are not even current gen. The “combat” is terrible, there is no plot, and the audio stinks.

What I found to be the worst and I don’t know why reviewers are not mentioning this… is that enemies re-spawn literally 3 minutes after you put them down. And I am not talking about, like random spawning stuff, I’m talking about “scripted” monsters. You kill them, walk down the beach a little bit, and come back – what do you know, there are the same monsters doing the same things! Even the weapons and $$$ re-spawn in the same spots! It’s almost laughable until you remember you paid for the game! Disgrace… I was board to death 40 minutes in. The game is literally the same terrible combat over and over and over again and the sad part is that I found kicking the zombies to death (yes KICKING, as in with her feet!) is the most effective weapon! Kick them while standing, or jump and kick them for a little more oompf, it’s all the same and it’s bad… real bad. You find so much $$$$ you don’t ever have to worry about losing a good weapon because you can completely repair it for $40 I walk down the same roads over and over and the cash just keeps re-spawning! 20 minutes into the game I had over $5000.00 and started with like $100. Most “upgrades” cost less than $100. Do the math, you cannot lose in this bore fest. Sure, it’s possible for the zombies to take you down but you just come right back with no consequences. It screams “NES console game”. If you are old enough to remember those games on the NES that 3rd parties would crap out by the hundreds… think Friday the 13th!!! Do a YouTube search for the “angry Nintendo nerd” or whatever his name is and watch his review of Friday the 13th for the NES. I implore you to do it, because, Dead Island is the 2011 version of that old stinker. Anyway, I puked a lil in my mouth typing this because I am so pissed I paid for this steaming pile… I have to go now and open all the windows in my house to air it out because of this POS.

DO NOT BUY THIS TERRIBLE POS! punish these devs for their deception.

sorrow

On September 9, 2011 at 4:20 pm

i like how half the peps who are on the form keep saying they only played 1 to 3 hrs of this game they dont know what there miss and there being cry babys and i just dont care about fing dbags like this any more YOU DONT LIKE IT FINE WHO CARES because you know what the 5000000 other people who love this game are gune play it with me for the next 3 months and no amount of hate from others will ruin this game to me and dont even put up stuff if you only playe 2 hrs of a 11 to 24 hr game

TomBomb

On September 10, 2011 at 4:11 pm

I disagree with everyone that says don’t buy this game. The whole fact is, do you like to beat the out of zombies? I’m talking sparta kicking them . curve stomping their asses, or like fighting a nice Thug that takes a load of damage and can knock your ass over like you weight nothing? Seriously, I’ve played 6 hours of single player and 2 hours of co-op and found this game excellent, already WORTH the money I spent on it. Yeah the story is bland, but I didn’t buy it for the STORY, I bought it because I saw all the kick-ass combat moves you could do to a zombie and still kept playing. Not to mention driving zombies over is a fun game to play with your buddies, trying to see how many kills you can get in a run up the island and back. It’s a great game, so don’t listen to all the people that just hate because they can.

Freesoul

On September 10, 2011 at 8:44 pm

Best zombie game i played, it’s like a borderland zombie game !!
Just love it, it doesnt get better than this if you play with a few friend and cold beers ^^

Sure if you are looking for a story driven game deep characters and multiple layers of meaning..pass your way !

But if you want to enjoy a huge (and i mean HUGE) sandbox zombie game with some friend, this is it !!

Bagman

On September 10, 2011 at 9:59 pm

Just shut up all of you with positive reviews. This crap is unfinished IT DOES NOT HAVE A STORY AND IT GIVES HEADACHES FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE! If you dont have headaches while playing this, it means either you are a kid or you are brainless, playing this stupid game for hours only because you paid for it. Dont try to justify your lost money, just complain about your headaches for the authorities and you might get your money back!

PapaPhewPillz

On September 13, 2011 at 1:08 pm

@bagman
just because YOU think its a piece of crap doesnt mean it is for others. i dont like you but me and your mom deal with it right? so DEAL WITH IT, nobody cares if YOU like it or not. its a good game to me, i played it all weekend and liked it alot/ glad I bought this. youre just being all prissy because you dont enjoy the game as much as any other person (who liked it) did. you sir are the brainless kid who goes around thinking the world’s biggest concern is pleasing you, quit being a brat and just say “i dont like the game, it wasnt what i thought” and realize the fact that other people have different opinions. i dont like peanut butter, do you see me going on the internet and posting people who like PB are brainless or kids cause i dont like it? no because i respect others opinions. yoyr mom should have swallowed you

Bagman

On September 13, 2011 at 1:30 pm

@

It’s just not my opinion its the opinion of the person who reviewed this game. About your whole comment, you just confirmed that you are brainless and stupid. If you dont have headaches while playing you must be a kid its A MUST.

Lucyfer

On September 15, 2011 at 12:42 am

I personally love this game so far, but my fiance finds it boring. It all ends up being each individuals opinion, just cause someone enjoys the game doesn’t make them a mindless person or a child. There are tons of different games on the market, clearly not everyone likes every game! My fiance loves Modern Warfare and games like that, where as I find them boring unless playing in special ops mode. Anyway this game is entertaining to me and as far as I’m concerned worth the money spent as there are not too many games that I really get into, but this one I can. If you enjoy doing lot’s of little missions and smashing or kicking zombies heads in this games for you. Also the beach atmosphere makes a nice change from a dark type of zombie game.

Atata

On September 15, 2011 at 1:14 am

@Bagman

Wow, who shoved you in your moms trunk and forgot to poke the holes through so you can breath?

@Everyone else

Don’t listen to the people putting down the game, just like the reviewer said with a few excessive remarks about the progression, this game is completely legit and will keep you on your toes the entire game throughout. Get it if you want a realistic experience with zombies, where if you ARE constantly button mashing like some idiots said you could do, you’d probably pass out because of how much of a spaz you are from zombies pummeling your exhausted body. AKA stamina, you have it, if you enjoy a challenge like me, and would like to be someone who can’t run a mile without needing to take a breath for a couple seconds, get this. Not to mention if you were spazzing, hitting adrenaline zombies THAT hard, I’m pretty sure whatever butter knife or broomstick you are holding will occasionally dull and break. The physical attributes brought into this game is great, and anyone saying different about the action that takes place is coming from a retrospective point of view. Of course gathering food snacks for health, as well as using energy drinks, (that must be the only thing that people actually drink around there) to heal is always complete nonsense but then, without good unrealistic healing we’d never make any progression through this tyrant of a game

Matt

On September 16, 2011 at 7:28 am

@Pizzedof

ur an idiot if you played the game past the first mission youd realise that upgrades cost in the thousands as does repairing it and good weapons are extremely rare. Thats probely why kicking them to death was most effective for you becaus your so retarded you probaly had a ruatly pipe or an oar u douchebag. And if you die you come back with no consequences? What about losing a whole chunk of your money which you need to repair your weapons and upgrade them or youll get fked over.

And everyone else maybe just play it for 6+ hours when you start getting awesome weapons. And scaling weapons is awesome its supposed to be a zombie survival game were its incredibly hard to survive not kill a zombie one shot with a punch u morons. And people saying at bout bugs ive played for 9 hours and founf 1 simple bug.And people saying theres too much zombie killing how stupid are you ITS A ZOMBIE GAME.Thats like saying nba 2K11 has too much basketball gameplay.Ans if you want a kick ass story dont play a zombie game were basicly the only story can be survive.

Duke

On September 16, 2011 at 3:07 pm

I like the game allot i do not agree with youre review but then again everyone has their own opinion. this game is lots of fun if you love to bash in heads of zombies with a certain difficulty. i always read several reviews just to look how people think of a game i reommend doing this always instead of just reading this 1 and saying im not buying it as this reviewer didnt like this game so he brings a negative way of saying it it also works the other way around.

ow yea all you haters (not dislikers) nobody cares for youre opinion

josh

On September 27, 2011 at 4:46 pm

Well I played it through on PC on single player mode.

The combat was satisfying for the most part, 1st person melee takes some getting use to figure out the effective ranges and dodging, some of those zombies are pretty relentless so it’s a good challenge.

I liked the weapon/leveling systems, but I never got the idea of using obscene amounts of $$ to repair/upgrade things. They should have just been more creative with it, had you gather scrap parts or barter with junk items or something.Whatever though, it’s a minor complaint.

My real problem with the game is the incredibly dull story & characters. As I said I played on single player mode, so maybe I was expecting more. There’s not a single NPC I really cared about throughout the game. They should have had FAR fewer survivors and developed those characters more, or implemented a good/evil system like fallout, so you can just rob, shoot and screw over other survivors.

Just because it’s a zombie game doesn’t mean we have to “zombie” our way through it. Zombie games can have decent story/characters, look at Resident Evil or even Dead Rising was more entertaining to play through. I guess if you need a zombie fix go with this, but I’m certainly glad I didn’t pay for it.

josh

On September 27, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Oh yah one more thing… headshots with firearms need to be instant kills or at least 1-2 hit kills, everybody knows that come on. I thought that part was pretty dumb.

high in the sky....;)

On October 30, 2011 at 10:48 am

not worth it i didnt buy i downloaded iso nd flashed xbox all da way buh still waste of disk its so boring and worse of all wat stopped me playing is wen i joined a mates game 2 help him complete it fast(only story mission) nd i do all side den main buh yh anyway i joined him completed it with him went back 2 my game and :@:@:@:@:@ agggghhhhhhhhhhhh it restarted the whole game 4 me sept 4 my level nd guns fukin peice of crap

T-zilla

On November 3, 2011 at 9:10 am

I got the game a few weeks back, I played the game for a solid amount of time now, solo or with some randoms online, which surprisingly where helpful and polite.

However the game is so boring and repetitive, most of the zombie killing is doing exactly the same thing, most of the weapons feel the same when using them, blunt or sharp weapons, you just use them in pretty much the same way, guns are pretty useless and there are barely any in the game, which makes sense considering they are in a resort island, but even then the shooting isn’t really polished, the combat on a whole doesn’t seem that polished either.

The game barely has any story, the missions have no depth, and there is no real incentive, the rpg side of the game is OK, but the fact enemies level up along with you is stupid, also the loot system is kinda crap, nothing really interesting in terms of weapons.

From reviews I read, some of the reviewers where saying it was similar to Fallout but with zombies, but it has none of the immersion, variety of quests and the quest have no story or real purpose apart for some thing to do in the game.

For me, this game is not fun at all, its just a chore of doing the same thing over and over again, bash zombies and do fetch quests, without any fun included, that’s Dead Island in a nutshell.

Coby

On December 13, 2011 at 6:23 pm

The game itself is a lot of fun to play. Although it does have some obvious bugs, especially on the PC version. For example, the left a creators mode in the first few days of release that allowed your character to fly around the may by pressing Y. People may compare it to Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3 (never played it), but I can assure, at least for L4D, that it is a totally different type of zombie game. The game can get a bit repetitive but when your playing with friends over the internet, it becomes much more fun, and, quite frankly, hysterical. The game has defections and, I hope it will soon be fixed because it is a lot of fun to play. I myself wouldn’t have given it a 65/100, but more like a 80/100. The graphics overall I think are detailed; but I’ll admit the quests can be annoying, like fetching some insane ladies stupid teddy bear, or getting 9,000 bottles of water to a lady who is still thirsty, but the co-op is fun and playing with friends is worth the experience.

A dude

On January 3, 2012 at 3:08 am

All u people who’s say this is a bad game either
1. Only played for like an hour, lots r saying “I only play 10-40 mins and got bored you are idiots
2. If you don’t like games with no story don’t buy ANY zombie games, if you like stories then I agree with the other guy, go buy a book this is a great game people

Devry

On January 4, 2012 at 12:29 pm

I thought this game was amassing and totally worth the money. As much as I loved fallout I don’t know haw anyone can say its like fallout at all. It was just what I thought It would be. A zombie RPG. And I the campaign wasn’t amassing but it was good and who gets RPGs for the campaign. I would totally recommend this game to anyone who likes RPGs and zombies. I have been waiting for this type of game for years.

chris

On January 28, 2012 at 2:36 am

love this game and this game is not boring yall

wolfeh

On February 16, 2012 at 11:57 pm

wow i can’t believe how different peoples’ opinions are on this game. well here’s one more opinion for the pool. at first, i hated this game. i hated degrading weapons. i hated the combat. i hated the running back and forth. i admit, i drudged through this game at the beginning for the sole reason that i had already spent the money on it. BUT after a few hours, learning a few combat techniques, getting used to the perks and customization menus, and finding some good weapons i find it to be one of the most unique and rewarding zombie smashing games i’ve ever played. killing zombies feels so personal in this game. when they sprint at me, shrieking in that shrill tone, i feel that momentary terror sweep over me. then, when i find myself effortlessly weaving attack combos together-an axe thrown into a face, followed by a kick to a head, meanwhile pulling out my machete and lobbing of yet another zombies head in one swipe, and curb stomping a skull or two in between… yeah, that’s satisfaction.

wolfeh

On February 17, 2012 at 12:12 am

the story isn’t all that bad. im currently trying to figure out how the apocalypse started. there are clues to a deeper story line lying about if you pay attention (example, a cargo container that says “Australia Bio-Tech”). that’s the thing in this game. it’s realistic in that there’s no obvious narrative. for me, its a refreshing change of pace from the slap-in-the-face obviousness of most game story lines.

also, what do you want from a survival game? the object is to survive. that means food, water, weapons, electricity, vehicles, supplies, etc. the basics.

p.s. am i the only asian chick wandering around banoi admiring the muscular athleticism of some of the female zombies? so realistic. it would be a shame if one of those bikinis should somehow… pop loose

Wasain

On February 26, 2012 at 7:30 pm

Ok I just read most of the comments. I agree it is a game which is mostly opinions. To put it simply… If you like zombie games where all you do it kill zombies. Here you go. If you don’t then don’t get it. If you like real life how it would be zombie apocalypse get the game. If you like one-shot kill everything you see with a basebal
Bat that somehow never breaks then get LFD 1 or 2. Like Fallout and killing zombies get the game. Like Mario and other games don’t get it. This game may be somewhat repetitive but come on. It’s 2012 how in depth do you think people can make games. I really think they did a good job. Deep Silver and TechLand did amazing with this. I personally love this game but I like zombie based games.

Mr. Eric

On March 9, 2012 at 6:00 am

I’ve had Dead Island since the launch date. Did my entire first playthrough completely unpatched (XBOX360) (no interwebs at the time). I, personally really enjoyed the game. I did feel as if the different acts were done by different groups of people however, because at some times (mainly Act II) the game takes itself really seriously as far as story and characters go in contrast to other acts (especially Act I, everything you do in act 1 feels like a total waste of time). However, despite the obvious narrative, the combat is almost spot on (if you are using analog controls), and feels very immersive. when you get hit by a zombie, it carries weight, the screen shakes, vision blurs, you might even get knocked down, and see your arms flailing as you try to get back up. That, coupled with all the different damage types, weapons, weapon blueprints, weapons degrading/breaking, and the absolute NEED to be fully aware all the time of your surroundings makes this feel like the Zombie Apocalypse simulator you have always wanted, but never really got

Joetta Aaron

On March 16, 2012 at 5:55 am

I would add that almost every application immaginable will become easily integratable within the cloud. Should be as easy as flipping a few switches to add applications that seamlessly integrate.

Deloris Sarnoff

On March 18, 2012 at 2:10 am

I know this doesn’t help much, but I tried to replicate the problem and couldn’t. Have you tried re-installing? After that the next step would be to contact HDRSoft. Just follow the link in the article.

Lorrine Greif

On March 19, 2012 at 2:29 am

Well put, Dave. I’ve been worried about this myself for years, which is why I haven’t started using cloud-based apps much when I’ve been able to avoid it.

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